re4

I can't not take a moment to mention that a Sony internal memo apparently is penciling in a September 17, 2010 release date for Resident Evil 4, presently Resident Evil: Afterlife. Much more on this to come, of course.

Wild Hogs

The things I do for you people. Sorry for the quality, best I could do with limited equipment.

Ease on down the road

For some time at my video store, the most perplexingly awful-looking movie has been Miss Cast Away and the Island Girls (aka Silly Movie 2, though I can find no trace of Silly Movie), firmly ensconced in the IMDb's Bottom 100 with a 1.9/10. It's some kind of combination of Cast Away with Miss Congeniality, stars Eric Roberts and Charlie Schlatter, and is a source of concern for everyone I've shown the DVD box. The real high point is on the back cover. I can't find a picture online, but among other selling points, it features a sort of Tyrannosaurus with a pig head, something very much like the suave customer pictured to the right, if rendered in particularly low-grade CG.

Michael Jackson plays "Agent MJ" in it (one of a raft of cameos including Bob Denver as Gilligan, Pat Morita, and somehow Jerry Lewis). Was Jackson expanding his role in the Men In Black sequel, in which he played merely Agent M?



I don't mean to be snide; this is just the most direct interaction of Jackson with this blog's range. Perhaps we should take the same tack with movies as with the musical and the personal, and remember Michael in happier remake times.

Return of the crestfallen

I have so little interest in Transformers 2 that I can't be bothered to look up the correct subtitle, but today is release day for either Transformers 2: Rise of the Fallen, or Transformers 2: Return of the Fallen, or Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.

I am of the right era, but didn't have any Transformers as a kid, so there's only the faintest hint of nostalgia (I did find them neat at other kids' houses) for me, and the franchise would have to have some type of saving grace as a movie to work. I skipped the flick in theaters, but my roommate ended up with a copy (I'm hoping he didn't buy it), and after it sat on the shelf for about a year, my curiosity got the better of me one hot summer day. I can recommend it for students of the latest special effects, Megan Fox droolers, the extremely nostalgic, and literal or figurative juveniles. As for the latest installment, try Roger Ebert's delightful evisceration.

What it's all about

New Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 comes out today. It's from Tony Scott, making his third Denzel Washington actiony thriller in five years, after Man on Fire (also a remake) and Déjà Vu.

I liked the old one from director Joseph Sargent, who's done a lot of TV work I wouldn't be into (and some I would) but had quite a sweet spot in the early/mid-1970s, Also, I heard a newscaster refer to it as "The Taking of Pelham One-Twenty-Three" and got mad at the TV. One-Two-Three, people. It's as easy as A-B-C.

Off we go...

Computer seems to be somewhat broken. Hiatus roughly as long as it takes me to diagnose, buy parts, etc.
Posting from alternate computer, so no access to my usually vast store of images and notes. Hope to have it up and running soon; will leave you guys this to think about.

What was it Kubrick said?

Let us honor Mother's Day with some overly tailor-made news: an upcoming remake of Mother's Day, Charles Kaufman's second directorial effort for his brother Lloyd's Troma Studios.

It'd be easy to lump Mother's Day in with the raft of early 1980s holiday-named slashers following the success of Friday the 13th – but Mother's Day has an alibi: it was being filmed in late 1979 at the same time as Friday the 13th, on the opposite side of the same lake (a store location in Mother's Day even shows up in Friday the 13th Part 2), and released just a few months later than F13's theatrical date. Its campy quality does makes it feel like a few of the 80s slashers, but it's heavier on...certain unpleasant content than slashers tend to be, and ultimately plays more like a very light I Spit On Your Grave than a woods-based stalker flick, fitting less into the slice-n-dice genre than the backwoods-horror tradition. It's got a small following but not one of my favorites.

The new version is expected for Mother's Day of next year. Director is Darren Lynn Bousman of Saws II-IV and Repo! The Genetic Opera.

Co-producer Richard Saperstein tells the Hollywood Reporter that the flick "will be post-'Strangers' in that it has very realistic qualities but has a high-concept overlay, this punishing maternal figure." Expect a mess.